mike petraglia

The fire that burns in Tom Brady, even in a bye week

Sure, he knows he can use the rest to heal the bumps and bruises. Sure, he can let up a little and spend more time with Gisele and the kids.

But don't think for one moment he is getting away from football. Not now. Not in November when he and the team appear to be putting it all together for another deep run into January and February.

"It’s always on my mind," Brady told WEEI.com on Tuesday before the six-day respite. "It’s just the way it is. I’ve been doing it for a while. So I’m trying to work hard on getting better and getting ahead and seeing if we can be more prepared than we’ve been for a game this year. We’ve got a little extra time to do it and we’ve got to be at our best. We’re going to Carolina.

"They’ve got a really good team. They’ve won four straight. They’ve got one of the best defensive fronts in football. I think they’re first in the league in scoring defense. It’s a big challenge playing Monday night. I think we’ve got to use every bit of time that we have to improve, try to get better and hopefully go out there and play our best a week from Monday."

Listen to Brady talk about how he deals with the bye and you get a peek into what makes him great. His fire. He knows that once you put it out, it's hard to get it rekindled.

"It goes so fast. Before you know it, we’ll be back getting ready for a game," Brady said. "We’ve got a couple days where we don’t have to come in here, but I’m still doing plenty of football stuff. It’s that time of year. I think our break comes in February after the season is over and I think now you just blink your eyes and you’re like ‘Man, OK, what plays are we running and how are we running them?’ So you get a few extra days to let your body try to heal some of the bumps and bruises and that’s a good thing, but at the same time you have to make sure you’re exercising so your body doesn’t fall asleep on you either. You have to go out and work just as hard this time as we did last week; it’s just working at something different."

Brady has been around the game long enough to know the difference between getting some extra rest and tuning out altogether.

"Those are important things to recover. It’s a physical sport and injuries happen all the time. Sometimes you overdo things and the only time to recover is when you give yourself some time to take a break, whether that’s a Tuesday afternoon or whether that’s a good night’s sleep. Those are all important this time of year. The games come to you so quickly. It’s really a marathon for us. It starts in late July and it’s just a mental and physical marathon."

There are ways you pace yourself through a marathon. There are ways you keep yourself refreshed. That's what this weekend is about to Brady. It's not about stopping as you approach "Heartbreak Hill." Brady's 14 years in the NFL have taught him the difference between pain and injury, and how to deal with both over the course of the season.

Brady has dealt with a banged up right hand, which caused a mini-panic following the loss to the Jets and the win over the Dolphins. He has taken 46 hits and has been sacked 26 times in nine games. He has taken more of a beating this season than any year in the past decade.

"The thing about football is that if you get hurt, it doesn’t matter; you’re playing next week," he said. "You’ve got a game next Sunday. So over the course of the week you’ve got to figure out ways to do the best so you can be at your best the following week. It’s not like most people where if you get injured, you get injured and you deal with it and you work through it. In our job, yeah you try to work through it, but you can’t postpone the game. You have to do everything you can to be ready to go.

"That’s a big commitment that a lot of guys make. The best players I’ve been around do that the best. They take the same energy and enthusiasm to the rest and rehabilitation part that they do to the preparation part. So guys that I’ve played with like Wes [Welker], for example, that was a real strength and that was why he was able to play. And guys that I’ve played with like Rodney Harrison and Junior Seau, I learned from those guys. So you watch the way that they prepare. You watch the way they treat themselves and then you try to be the best that you can for the team."

Deep down, Tom Brady wants no part of the bye week. He loves football too much to want to stop now.

Who can blame him? He's coming off the best performance of an up-and-down season. He, Rob Gronkowski and Danny Amendola all appeared to be on the same page.

Add in rookie Aaron Dobson, who is making leaps-and-bounds progress every week and the always dependable Julian Edelman, and you see why Brady would like to keep going.

Brady's numbers at the bye are not at his customary elite level. He is completing 57.1 percent of his passes and averaging just 6.6 yards per attempt. Last week's near-perfect performance of four touchdown passes on 432 yards passing raised his QB rating nearly 10 points to 82.7. Still, that's 13 points below his career average.

With Shane Vereen eligible to come back after the bye, joining Stevan Ridley in the backfield, Brady has a lot of reason to think better times are ahead and he can't wait.

"Fifty-five points was great," Brady said Tuesday, with almost a giddy sense of relief after the rout of Pittsburgh. "Four touchdowns in the fourth quarter was pretty impressive. It’s all a matter of us being on the same page and working hard to make the improvements. There are certainly a lot of things that we can do to improve over the course of the next month and a half. A lot of things that we’ve learned from our experience, trial and error – some was good and some was bad, but for the most part we need to take the lessons we’ve learned and try to apply them so we can be the best offense we can be going forward."

Get your rest, Tom. With seven games left and the improving Jets just two games back in the division and teams like the Colts, Chiefs, Broncos and Bengals racing for AFC position, the marathon will quickly become a track meet in the final two months.

Greg and Chris talk with Mike Reiss from ESPN Boston in hour 2 of NFL Sunday to discuss a variety of offseason happenings with the Pats and throughout the league. Greg and Chris also get into the NFL Draft and where Mariota and Winston will go.

Mike Reiss calls the guys to talk about the offseason news for the Pats. He talks about the Pats/Jets tampoering fiasco, free agency, where he sees Ridley and Connolly ending up, if the Patriots would be interested in Reggie Wayne and more.

In the first hour of the show, Greg and Chris discuss the news coming out of the owners' meetings this week and rule changes. Belichick's blow-up over the league not wanting to spend on endzone cameras was well documented and the guys react. They also talk about the Jets ridiculous tampering charges, free agents still lingering out there, where Stevan Ridley will land and the RB position in New England. Dickerson and Price briefly discuss the adventures of Tom Brady before being joined by WEEI.com's Mike Petraglia to talk all things Pats in the offseason.

Flannery joins Mut to break down the Isaiah Thomas trade to Boston and what it means for the Celtics this season and in the future. Paul also chats with Mut about the other deals that happened at the NBA's trading deadline

Mut, Tomase, and Bradford kick things off talking about Shane Victorino taking offense to people reading into some comments he made about trading for Cole Hamels. They also discuss Blake Swihart and how soon he could be up if Christian Vazquez starts the season on the DL.

Joe Kelly joined the Hot Stove show where he talked about being ready for his next spring training start after a biceps ailment forced him out of his last outing, he talks about his NCAA brackets and how teammate Wade Miley has a perfect bracket still.

Peter Chiarelli joined the Sunday Skate crew to talk about the Bruins playoff push heading into the final handful of games of the regular season. Chiarelli talked about avoiding some of the overly negative feedback he gets while realizing that the team does have real issues. He discusses what went down at the trade deadline and if he was happy with the outcome, Lucic having a down year and underperforming, the salary cap and if he considers it as big of an issue as it's been made out to be and what the future holds for the team.

It's a big hour #2 for the Sunday Skate dudes - they talk about the B's defenseman and what the future looks like at that position, with both moves the team can make and younger guys in the AHL. They also get into the Bruins philosophy on bringing guys up and sending them back down and how players deal with that. Finally, the boys are joined by Bruins GM Peter Chiarelli to discuss EVERYTHING.

The Sunday Skate crew gets the show going discussing the Bruins big, impressive victory over the NY Rangers yesterday. What can you take from that game? According to LB - Lyndon Byers - who called the guys from the road, not a lot. LB drops a dime on what was going on with the Rangers yesterday. DJ and Joe discuss Claude's lines and groupings and the importance of Ryan Spooner. They also get into Lucic, his contributions this year and if he can turn things around.

With the Wells report seemingly wrapping up (we hope), Tim and Lou got to talking about possible fines and punishments the Patriots must face. It's possible that the Patriots will face a small fine, but should they take that laying down? The conversation brings out a little passion from BOTH sides.